Britain's governing Labour Party has caught up with, or overtaken, Nigel Farage's populist Reform UK in the polls, according to three separate surveys that showed a bounce for new leader Andy Burnham a week after he became prime minister.
Farage's anti-immigration Reform party had led nearly every opinion poll for more than a year and gained hundreds of seats in local and regional elections in May, prompting Labour to remove the unpopular Keir Starmer and install Burnham, a more charismatic former mayor, as prime minister on 20 July.
Burnham's opening moves
Burnham spent his first week in office seeking to give voters "breathing space" on the cost of living, removing a tax on energy bills, capping bus fares and cutting taxes for pubs and bars.
A poll by Survation found Labour on 26% after Burnham's first week in office, overtaking Reform on 24%. The week before Starmer announced his resignation in June, Labour had stood at just 19%, with Reform on 27%. Survation chief executive Damian Lyons Lowe said the poll marked the highest support Survation had recorded for Labour since 3 June 2025, and the first Labour polling lead since 3 May 2025.
Other pollsters reported a similar shift. On Monday, More in Common put Labour on 28%, ahead of Reform on 24%, while YouGov had the two parties tied at 22%, with Labour up six points since May and Reform at its lowest level of support since March 2025. YouGov also found that more Britons viewed Burnham as a better prime minister than Farage or any other major party leader.
A difficult moment for Reform
The shift in the polls comes as Reform faces questions over whether gifts from wealthy backers were properly declared, a controversy Farage has angrily dismissed as an attempt by the political establishment to discredit him.
Asked about Labour's improved standing on Monday, Burnham said he would not get "carried away," but was pleased to have made a start where he hoped he had "connected with people."
